Microsoft SharePoint 2019: Online vs On-premises

SharePoint: The Undeniable Value Add

It’s 2019, the era of ever-evolving technological advancements. Most global organizations operate in a complex and multidimensional competitive environment. Increasing scrutiny from the stakeholders means companies are now not only concerned about the relevance of their processes but are also equally willing to adopt more efficient and less time consuming supportive platforms. SharePoint Online, a component of Office 365 or On-Premises SharePoint are two such widely used platforms.

The effectiveness of these platforms allows companies to focus on their bottom lines and less on administrative but critical tasks such as content management.

SharePoint 2019 Additions – The Modern Makeover

Recently, a New SharePoint 2019, the on-premises version was released, and it received encouraging end-user reviews. The goal was to enhance user experiences. To a great extent, it succeeded. 

Reiterating the utility value of the on-premise version, Adam Levithan, an information architect, SharePoint advocate and observer said: 

“If nothing else, you can see that the focus of Microsoft is aimed squarely at the cloud, with some of the best features being brought to the on-premises server.” (Source: avepoint.com) 

SharePoint Online – Scope for Expansion

A survey from the Uptime Institute stated that over 60% of the enterprise workload is still being run on organizationally owned data centers. It points towards a significant growth potential for SharePoint Online.

With Office 365, you get an opportunity to access all main programs in your company with substantial ease. It considerably lightens the workload for your IT teams. Besides, the subscription model also proves to be more effective in the long term. Pointing towards a major advantage of SharePoint Online,ComputerSupport.com wrote “The major difference between SharePoint Online and On-premises is that to run the on-premises version you’ll need an IT team to maintain the server, to install updates and patches. It means more people and hardware. With the online version, your internal resources are reduced. There’s no new hardware to buy and maintain, which means your IT staff can focus on more impactful tasks.”

SharePoint Online Vs. On-Premises

In spite of positive reviews, these are early days for New features Sharepoint 2019. The majority of companies have not moved to the cloud. Many organizations are yet to make a decision.

The choices? To stay on-premises and fully embrace SharePoint 2019, move to the online version, or develop a hybrid mechanism best suited for their needs.

The On-Premise Sharepoint: Your company hosts it, and internal IT teams are held responsible for any change control and updates. The Active Directory Domain Services are managed on-premises by your organization. Client Access Licenses (CALs) should be purchased for every person/device accessing the SharePoint.

The SharePoint Online: Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure hosts SharePoint farms and applies various security patches. It also installs essential platform updates. You get 99.9% availability commitment as per Office 365 SLA. You may receive service credit in case of lesser availability. The online or cloud version generally receives more updated features and is also geographically redundant.

Which one to adopt?

Let’s look at the factors which must be considered by organizations and end users while taking this decision which could have far-reaching consequences. Willing organizations must consider two broader areas of comparison:

User Experiences:

With On-Premise Sharepoint Server, you get a next generation sync client – One drive. It comes with a modern team, communication sites, pages, lists, libraries, hub sites, and SharePoint Home. It also provides extended character length and larger file support.

With SharePoint Online, in addition to all the similar user experiences available in On-Premise version, you get power apps-flow, Microsoft teams, yammer, delve, stream and planner features.

Administrative improvements:

With On-Premise Sharepoint Server, you get Newest IIS APIs, updated health analyzer, latest PowerShell, recycle bin restore improvements and advanced hybrid options.

With SharePoint Online, you get SharePoint and One Drive administrative center with access to Sharing, storage, sync, device access. You also get security and compliance center options such as Classifications, threat management, data governance, and reports.

Regarding the differences between user experiences or administrative improvements in SharePoint Online and On-Premise versions, you must focus on your organization’s goals. Business goals could vary from one organization to another; therefore, the platform choices must be made accordingly.

The Conclusion

There are apparent differences between On-Premise and Online versions. If you already have an existing, capable infrastructure and you have integrated your external employees, customers in that infrastructure, on-premises option could be more suitable for you. Also, if you need farm solutions and your data protection requirements demand an in-house system, it could be the appropriate choice.

On the other hand, if you are more inclined towards taking advantage of new features, more uptime and prefer spending less time on maintaining SharePoint environment, the SharePoint Online or Office 365 could be a better option.

Eventually, your choice for an appropriate SharePoint Enterprise should be largely dependent on the context of your decision and not only the features.

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Our SharePoint and Office 365 Courses

If you are looking for advanced, customized Microsoft SharePoint training or certification courses to help you gain performance-ready expertise in SharePoint, Microsoft SharePoint Courses and Microsoft Office 365 Courses could be highly useful to you.

You could be a fresher or an experienced SharePoint end user, with NetCom Learning, you get a comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals of SharePoint design, development, and administration. In addition to training from certified professional trainers, your SharePoint skills can also be developed through hands-on lab sessions.

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